PICKPOCKET PORTER CAN’T STOP LYING ABOUT THE NDIS

Joint Media Release with the Shadow Minister for Families and Payments and the Shadow Minister for Disability Reform, Jenny Macklin.

The Turnbull Government continues to lie about funding for the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Labor's 2013 Budget set out a 10-year funding plan for the NDIS. This included an increase in the Medicare levy, but also several other savings and revenue measures.

These Budget measures – and the numbers underpinning them – were prepared by the Treasury. The Treasury Secretary at the time was Martin Parkinson – the current Secretary of the Prime Minister’s own department. Is the Government seriously suggesting that we can’t trust the work of its most senior government officials?

The Government’s lies also ignore the fact that the Liberals supported most of these Budget measures. Not only did they vote for most of them – some of the measures even passed the Parliament after the election, when the Liberals were in Government.

[DisabilityCare Australia document, 2013-14 Budget, page 4]

To now claim that these measures weren’t dedicated to funding the NDIS amounts to an effective theft of funds that were intended for people with disability.

The Government must explain what it has done with funding that was specifically legislated to pay for the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Next week’s Budget will reveal if the Government still maintains bipartisan support for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, or if the opposite is now true.

In next week’s Budget, the Government must not use the NDIS as an excuse to inflict further savage cuts on families and vulnerable Australians.

People with disability, their families and carers will not accept being used as the political plaything of the Turnbull Government.

The NDIS is transforming the lives of thousands of Australians with disability. This is the biggest social reform since Medicare and it is being delivered on time and within the budget.

It is unforgiveable for the Turnbull Government to keep trying to mislead and frighten Australians about the future of the scheme.

Australians will not accept more cruel cuts from this Government under the guise of funding the NDIS. The National Disability Insurance Scheme is already funded.